


Lay your weary head to rest

by Alice_huhhuhhhu



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort, Dean Winchester Feels, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Drunk Dean Winchester, Emotions, Feelings, Gen, Guilt, Hurt, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Memories, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Music, One Shot, Song: Carry on My Wayward Son (Kansas), Songfic, Winchester Coping Mechanisms, headphones, i didn't intend to write this, why is there a tag for that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 22:38:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17876156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_huhhuhhhu/pseuds/Alice_huhhuhhhu
Summary: After an unsuccessful hunt, Dean listens to music and tries to deal with his emotions.I didn't even intend to write this, I just started and then kept going. This was inspired by a picture of Dean wearing headphones and, obviously, the song "Carry on My Wayward Son" by Kansas. It's also the first songfic I've ever written, but definitely not the last one...





	Lay your weary head to rest

It happened again. They completely messed up yet again, leading innocent people to their deaths. _Damn it._

Dean stumbled through the hallway, supporting himself on the walls every few steps so he wouldn’t lose balance and fall. There it was, his room, his shelter, the only place where he wanted to be right now after drinking with Sam for what felt like hours. He grabbed the handle, swung open the door, closed it behind him with a loud thud.

Tired eyes scanned the bed in the corner, he sat down, didn’t even kick off his shoes as he got comfortable with a few pillows behind his back. Dean knew he wouldn’t find any rest if he closed his eyes now. Everything he’d see, everything he’d dream of would be blood and pain and self-hatred, blaming himself for things he couldn’t avoid. He wasn’t ready to go to that dark place his mind would throw him into, he was afraid, to be honest.

Dean was afraid to face it, he always was. He would have to accept the situation at some point, but… not right now. Maybe he could wait for another hour or so. _Just a little longer_. Push away this emptiness inside his chest for just a few more minutes until it would embrace him completely.

 

Instead of going to sleep, he spotted his headphones on the nightstand, right next to an empty beer bottle, the cable neatly rolled up and ready to be used. With a weak arm, he reached out and grabbed the device while his other hand searched for his phone in his back pocket. Dean squinted his eyes at the bright light as he turned it on and plugged in the headphones before he slowly, carefully put them on as well.

The background noises of rumbling pipes and a loudly cursing Sam in the control room of the bunker faded into absolute silence. It was almost unbearable and for a second, Dean thought that he would even prefer the howling of hellhounds or the obnoxious ringing of an angel’s voice to _this_. The hunter skimmed his playlist, giving up on searching for something, and finally clicked on a random song. He leaned back a bit, closed his eyes and focussed on nothing else but the lyrics that started to appear in his head.

 

Carry on my wayward son

There’ll be peace when you are done

Lay your weary head to rest

Don’t you cry no more

Ironically, that’s the only thing Dean wanted to do at this moment. _Cry_. Just let it all go, lose control and do what he never allowed his body to do. But he couldn’t. He bit his lip until he tasted blood, his face a grimace of pain and a feeling of guilt in his stomach that he couldn’t shake off. What happened today was his fault, _he_ was the one to blame, and there’s nothing he could do against it.

He didn’t want to carry on. He wanted to stay in this bed forever, because certainly there _won’t_ be any peace for him. There had never been. Since he lost his mother, he should have known that peace was something he couldn’t obtain. Happiness, yes, there had been a few happy moments before, but it was a temporary feeling that vanished as soon as reality kicked in.

The loud, exciting guitar part changed into the softer sound of a piano and Dean let out an audible sigh.

Once I rose above the noise and confusion

Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion

I was soaring ever higher,

But I flew too high

Dean remembered what it was like when he started hunting. His dad taught him, well, rather forced him to follow his commands, but there were times when he enjoyed the job. He felt like he belonged somewhere. Not like he belonged to a group of friends at school, not like he belonged to a certain place he called home. Hunting was everything he had, and he devoted his life to it, he gave it everything he got.

There was no denying that he hated it sometimes, when he saw how sad his brother was about the situation, when the two of them had to stay behind because John had gone on a hunting trip on his own, leaving the two kids in a motel room with nothing but the instructions to shoot first and ask questions later. And to watch over Sammy, of course. Not that Dean minded doing the latter. His little brother could be annoying, but he never hated taking care of him. If anything, he hated _not_ taking care of him, not being able to make things easier for him back then.

When he got older, Dean got more reckless and almost got killed a few times. It didn’t help that Sam had quit his life as a hunter and started going to college. His father couldn’t stand the idea of it, but secretly, Dean was proud. Still, he missed Sam and would give everything to have his brother by his side again. And when John suddenly disappeared one day, Sam was the only one he could ask for help. If he had known where they would end up, he would have searched alone. He wouldn’t have pulled his brother into this bloody mess. But he did, and here he was.

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man

Though my mind could think I still was a mad man

I hear the voices when I’m dreaming,

I can hear them say…

At this point, Dean couldn’t even control the images. It was as if someone had started a movie inside his head and he was forced to watch this tragedy until it was over. He had thought he was right, he had thought he was doing the right thing, but he wasn’t. _He wasn’t even close._ So many mistakes had been made, people died because of him, and it was all his fault, _his damn fault_ , because he didn’t know better, because he took too many risks, because he didn’t take things seriously enough.

Oh yeah, he could hear the voices when he was dreaming. Voices, as in, the screams of people he couldn’t save, innocent people begging for help before they would turn silent, forever. And they never stopped. Wasn’t this the reason why he fought against his urge to sleep right now? Wasn’t it because of those voices that haunted him in his sleep? Dean’s hands curled up into fists, he clutched at the bedsheets until his knuckles turned white. _Just another few minutes…_

Carry on my wayward son

There’ll be peace when you are done

Lay your weary head to rest

Don’t you cry no more

The chorus brought Dean back to the present, to reality, and he released the sheets with a groan. His head ached and he still felt a bit lost in his own bed, but to his surprise, it felt… better somehow. Like reflecting on the stuff that was going through his head made it easier to deal with, no matter how painful it was to see these images again. Once they were gone, they were gone for good, like papers that were waiting to be filled in and sent away afterwards. Once he signed the pages, he could neatly fold them and store them somewhere in the back of his head where they wouldn’t bother him anymore.

Masquerading as a man with a reason

My charade is the event of the season

And if I claim to be a wise man

It surely means that I don’t know

What was he doing anyway? How did he manage to cope with all that misery in his life? Wasn’t it time to change strategies at some point-or would he always stay the same? He was putting up a façade, he could fool everyone else, but he couldn’t fool himself. Wasn’t it time to acknowledge and accept? To grow up and at least let his brother help him with his problems? _Talk about it_ for once?

He didn’t know. Admitting his feelings made him vulnerable, and that was something he tried to prevent at all costs. Being vulnerable meant being weak and being weak resulted in fucking things up and getting hurt in the process. Dean didn’t want to get hurt, rejected or labelled as a weak person. Where did his courage go when it came to things like this, where was the Dean Winchester he usually saw when he looked in the mirror, the reckless man with a mischievous smirk on his lips?

On a stormy sea of moving emotion

Tossed about I’m like a ship on the ocean

I set a course for winds of fortune,

But I hear the voices say…

Dean was lost in his emotions and he didn’t know where to start looking for a way out, he didn’t even _consider_ the possibility of finding out on his own. His life was ruled by fate, by luck, good luck as well as bad luck, and he couldn’t predict what would happen next. Realizing that he couldn’t control a thing, that he might not be responsible for every little thing that happened, made the hunter open his eyes.

He was only human, after all, why did he keep blaming himself for things he couldn’t control? It wasn’t his fault for things to happen, he concluded, but it was his fault for seeing it that way. Would it be selfish to blame it on fate, would it make him a bad person to abandon that heavy weight of responsibility that he had been carrying on his shoulders ever since he started this life?

 

Carry on my wayward son

There’ll be peace when you are done

Lay your weary head to rest

Don’t you cry no more

This time, the chorus, as well as the instrumental part, didn’t sound mocking or teasing anymore. It was…encouraging, Dean found himself sinking deeper into the pillows as he relaxed. Suddenly his mind was clear, there were no more painful flashbacks, no more questions left unanswered.

He felt at ease, as if he had found purpose in something he couldn’t even name. Whatever it was, Dean thanked God for giving it to him, but also questioned why he hadn’t gotten it any sooner. _Whatever_. God works in mysterious ways. Or something like that. Maybe it was rather because of the alcohol than some godlike power that his concentration started to fade, and his eyelids got heavier by the second.

 

Carry on, you will always remember

Carry on, nothing equals the splendor

Now your life’s no longer empty

Surely heaven waits for you

The numb feeling in his chest was completely gone. Dean could feel his eyes close again, but he couldn’t care less. If heaven really waited for him, it would have to wait a little longer until he was done with all this crap here on earth. And if he _really came_ to heaven, he the first thing he’d do is kick all these dickheads who caused him trouble down here in the ass. He grinned at the mental image that appeared in his head and chuckled quietly. Yes. _Yes, that would be awesome_.

 

Carry on my wayward son

Would he change his way of dealing with his emotions? Would he accept what he figured out just now? Would he allow himself to be a bit happier?

There’ll be peace when you are done

He didn’t know. For a moment, Dean considered standing up and talking to Sam _right now_ , but then again, he didn’t want to get out of bed. And as his vision became blurry, he chose to let his sober self make that decision tomorrow morning, because drunk him wasn’t the most trustworthy person when it came to that.

Lay your weary head to rest

Yes, he would lay his weary head to rest now and go to sleep, because he was tired, because he had had at least one drink too much, because he was still in his dirty clothes and he still had the headphones on, _but it was perfect, and he didn’t care._

Don’t you cry no more

He drifted off, and this time, he didn’t hear the screams. There was silence, well-deserved silence without any distractions, partly thanks to the headphones still covering his ears. Despite the horrible day and the mood he had been in earlier, Dean couldn’t complain. He was happy.

The hunter was too far gone to hear that the door opened, revealing a worried Sam. When the younger Winchester saw his brother on his bed, fully dressed, with headphones on and a satisfied smile on his lips, he couldn’t help but giggle. He thought about taking a photo to tease Dean about it the next day, but he couldn’t muster up the courage to step inside and risk waking him up. Dean was an angry sleeper, but that wasn’t the only reason why Sam wouldn’t want to disturb his brother’s sleep.

The older hunter looked peaceful, something he didn’t see very often, and he would do anything to keep that smile on his lips for as long as possible.

…no more


End file.
